Picked up car Thursday lunch time. Got a cab to dealer so wife and I could both come back in it. Cab pulled up behind our new car and it looked amazing!

Sophisto Grey with gloss black trim and m-sport really suit the car.

Fortunately the outside of the car wasn't as large as I'd feared and sitting in it was noticeably more spacious and comfortable than our 318.

Paperwork took a short while, I got a reasonable deal for A-Glaze, tire & shortfall insurance with BMW.

The dealer explained the main features, I'd never seen many of the added features before. Head up display is impressive, comfort access means no need to get keys out to use car, put adjustable seats in roughly the right position to get home, but I'll need to play around to get them just right.

Closing the door makes a lovely clunk. The drive home was brief, left out of dealer, 10mins down a road and a right left to our place. 20mph in a straight line, but it handled effortlessly. Parallel parked on first attempt in what looked like a tight space (no park assist option) but I actually had loads of room.

Managed to drive 1 min on Friday up the road for lunch, wife drove back.

Im now stuck holding our 2 month old having his much needed morning nap. Wish I had the car manual on me to read...

Have done about 200 miles now. Just thought I'd put down my comments of my first impressions.

530i - quiet typically, beautiful noise at high revs, smoothly builds the power, which is double our old car, so taking it easy. Looks good under the hood.

M-Sport Touring - love the shape!

Sophisto Grey 2 - like the way it subtly changes in the light, a moody serious look, darker than I remember in the showroom, looks good in the rain, looks dirty after the rain. Glad we went for the gloss black trim, tempted to change the chrome front grills too.

Oyster/Black Dakota leather - 2 tone is growing on me, would have prefered all oyster, but I expect black footwells and boot will help hide the dirt.

ZGM - Comfort Pack w/seats - Unbeleavable! No need to remove key from pocket and for lifting in kids and carseats that is most useful, and with stuff under both arms, wave foot under rear bumper and click, rear boot opens. Hold finger on door handle and doors lock, windows close, roof closes, mirrors fold up. The seats are amazing, I have mine set for general about town use, there are like 10 different movable sections of the seat, so this took quiet some time. Comfy.

ZGP - Media Pack Pro Plus - Head up display is very cool, I no longer need to look away from the road, all I need is there. Sat Nav looks great, I have 3D on the left, north plan on the right, but coming from a very good tomtom, I do miss a few things. Not explored the media features yet, have saved a couple of CDs to the car quite simply.

223 - Variable Damper Control - more noticeable than I expected! Has mainly been in super smooth Comfort+ to get the kids to sleep or ECOpro with cruise control on for the motorway. Tried it in Sport on a short section of twisty road and it really stiffened up, feels more connected to the road. Having these as options is fantastic!

2NB - 19" 351M - alloys look great, and huge next to the 16" ones on our other car. Run flats are quite noisy, will look into what options I have when it comes to replacing them.

2TB - Sport Automatic - moving from 'D' to 'S' is an exciting switch! The noise of the higher revs is worth it alone! Not tried the manual paddles yet.

402 - Panoramic Glass Sunroof - its massive. It lets so much light in and the air from above is refreshing.

677 - Loudspeaker Pro - it's good, and I think better once I turned bass down and treble up, then noticed there is an equaliser too, so will be tweaking that soon. Quite a clear distinction between instruments.

654 - DAB - at last. 6music while driving. Not compared quality with other sources yet.

8TH - Speed limit display - when this refers to the sat nav info; it is often wrong, but seems to reliably correct itself when driving past signs. I miss the tomtom here. We'll see.

5AG - Lane Change Warning - useful on our first motorway trip. I looked out rear and side view mirror, indicated left and steering wheel vibrated before I turned as a ford focus was slowly overtaking me on the inside. I still, out of habit look over my shoulder before turning. While driving along, the triangle lights up as cars pass.

430 - Ext Mirrors folding - its only street parking round here. Many of us neighbours have had mirrors kicked off, now we all leave them folded in over night. But this and the keying has reduced a bit recently.

316 - Boot-lid powered - a nice delicate alternative, except when a bit of extra oomph is needed with a full boot.

418 - Extended storage - straps look useful for when there's not much in the boot, inclining rear seats should give an extra 100mm when packing in boxes. Can't use the Recaro kids seat when inclined, will try the Kiddy, I'm sure the maxicosis will be fine.

575 - 12 volt - its there for when I can think of a use for it.

441 - smokers pack deletion - comes with a little tray with a no smoking sign in it.

Connected Drive - have just set it up, preconditioning and address to satnav look useful. Light flashing worked, but a bit of a delay from activating it.

Congratulations on your F11. Lovely car and a great cruiser. My wallet didn't quite stretch to a new car but I got a decent spec F11 530d. Would have loved Comfort seats, HUD and VDC but beggars can't be choosers.

Last year we did a 2500 mile road trip to France which was extremely comfortable. 12 hours door to door and not a peep from my 2 daughters.

Wow, I bet that was a great trip! If we did more miles we'd have gone for a 530d. Did you have much oppertunity to push it? Difficult with family in car.
I'm thinking up all sorts of ideas for road trips, as I potter around London doing 10-20mph and trying to parallel park in spaces my 318i could fit in.

With the reversing camera the red lines show you the absolute minimum radius when turning on full-lock, the green grid shows your current steering angle. To reverse straight into a space drive until the red line is just inside the bay, apply full lock and reverse in. Check the video demonstration in the in-car handbook on the i-Drive display.

Thanks Xenon, will try that. Also, I've not seen the video yet. The lines don't seem to exactly line up with the curb, there's still 150mm gap, and with a car this wide that means I'm outside the lines on the other side. I've already curbed an alloy :-/ I blame the coffee.
I noticed the beeps flat line with 200mm gap remaining at front & rear.
I assumed with practice, I could get into a tighter space than the park assist option I didn't go for (car +1.2m)

Congrats on your F11, I had the 272 bhp engine in my 330 msport tourer I have just sold, fantastic engine especially when heading for the red line.....
Just about to order up a F11 msport, probobly 525d or 530d ( now doing 30 k / year ), quick question - when you delete smokers pack am I right in thinking in place of *** lighter and ash tray you get 12 v socket and plastic tray ?
Thanks
Andy